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14 Recommended WordPress Plugins

It’s a gorgeous morning in London and while I’m sat here with the birds tweeting in the back ground researching a few more wordpress plugins for my blog, I thought I’d share some of the one’s that I currently have active.

Why 14 I hear you ask, well out of the many WP plugins that I use I would highly recommend the following 14.

I’ve listed the plugins in alphabetical order with the description that comes with them, my reason for choosing them and a link to the plugin page. For some of the plugins that I use, I specifically looked for ones with shortcode that could be manually placed into the code / post or page – not just widgets in the sidebar.

For this reason, I find them a lot easier to work with and more suited to the way I have my site set up.

1. Akismet

Used by millions, Akismet is quite possibly the best way in the world to protect your blog from comment and track-back spam. It keeps your site protected from spam even while you sleep.

10. Portfolio Slideshow

A shortcode that inserts a clean and simple jQuery + cycle powered slideshow of all image attachments on a post or page. Use shortcode to activate.

A great plugin that I’ve used on all my snowboarding tips to display goofy (right footed) and regular (left footed) pictures of me demonstration tricks. After a little editing and shuffling around with the code it now produces a nice effect. Clicking on the picture simply switches between two pictures. Shortcode enables it to only produce this effect on pages / post that the shortcode is entered into.http://demo.madebyraygun.com/portfolio/

11. Recent Posts Embed

Embed a list of recent posts in a page or a post with option to include/exclude specific categories.

Always check the developers website for help forums etc, but in the rare case you don’t find what you are looking for then feel free to ask me here and I’ll try and help out, whether is be shortcode or teething problems customizing the plugins.

Click here for a previous post that lists more about the design and code building to my website.